


Bah Humbug

by fredbassett



Series: Stephen/Ryan series [46]
Category: Primeval
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-29
Updated: 2013-10-29
Packaged: 2017-12-30 21:29:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1023588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fredbassett/pseuds/fredbassett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The team make themselves at home in their new headquarters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bah Humbug

“Do I make myself clear?” demanded Lester, rapping sharply on the table with his pen.

Stephen looked up from playing footsie with Ryan under the same table. They were sitting in the conference room of their newly-opened headquarters, the grandly-named Anomaly Research Centre. The meeting had been in progress for something over an hour but Stephen had switched off after the first five minutes. He was now wondering whether he’d missed anything important but he was pleased to see that everyone else looked as vague as he felt. The subject of Lester’s pontificating was no doubt doomed to remain a mystery.

“I’m wasting my breath, aren’t I?” Lester snapped, standing up and gathering a pile of files. “And yes, ladies and gentlemen, that was a rhetorical question.” He swept out of the door with the parting shot of, “Look it up, Mr Temple.”

“What’s got his goat?” mused Connor, closing his laptop and staring owlishly around the room.

“A budget over-run of something approaching a million pounds, I imagine,” said Claudia.

“He’ll get over it.” Cutter grinned. “We got the labs we wanted, though, didn’t we?”

“And the animal holding pens,” said Abby. She looked faintly guilty. “Maybe we’d better start being a bit nicer to him?”

All eyes swivelled to Lyle, who was lounging in one of the chairs, right ankle crossed over his left knee as he picked at his nails with a knife. “Don’t look at me,” said the lieutenant, with a grin. “I already do enough to draw his fire from you lot. Time someone else took one for the team.” He re-sheathed the blade under his trouser leg and stood up. “Firing range, anyone?”

* * * * *

They’d moved into the building the previous day. Lester had refused point-blank to countenance any sort of opening ceremony, but that hadn’t stopped Abby from stretching a red ribbon across the huge, hanger-like doors which led into the cavernous atrium and insisting that Lester cut it with a pair of nail-scissors she’d borrowed from Claudia.

Lester had acquiesced, grudgingly, and had then closed himself away in his office on the first floor, leaving the rest of the team to wander around the building and make themselves at home. The Special Forces lads had been impressed by the recreation room and the small but well-equipped gym. They’d been even more impressed by the armoury and the underground firing range. Cutter, pleased with the extensive array of laboratory facilities, had promptly claimed an office for his own and had started to make himself at home.

It felt strange not to be working out of the university and the Home Office any more, but although the steel and glass building lacked charm, Stephen had to admit that it made an excellent base for the rapidly-expanding anomaly project.

He and Cutter had spent a great deal of time over the past month interviewing scientists to work with them in the aptly-named ARC, with the intention of bringing in much-needed expertise in physics, palaeo-botany and a variety of other disciplines. There had been times during the process that Stephen had wondered exactly what background some of the candidates came from. They had all possessed the highest level of security clearance and, once selected, none of them had been unduly surprised to find themselves working with dinosaurs, a fact which naturally fuelled all of Connor’s wilder conspiracy theories.

Connor had promptly set up camp in the atrium, spreading computer equipment everywhere. He was working on a device to detect the appearance of anomalies and pinpoint their location. Stephen wasn’t entirely sure how it all worked, but Connor had been babbling excitedly about radio waves for a while, and anything which helped the team to get to the scene of a possible creature incursion more quickly would get Stephen’s vote, whether he understood it or not.

They’d spent most of the first day shipping books and other materials over from Cutter’s rooms in the CMU and saying their goodbyes. Lester had negotiated a sabbatical for both of them, citing important but top-secret government work. A large research grant towards the cost of running the university’s newly-acquired super-computer had sweetened the negotiations, so now at least Stephen and Cutter were both free of the problem of having to juggle two different areas of work.

Christmas was only two weeks away, a fact which Connor had been reminding them of, at the least provocation, for the past few days. So Stephen wasn’t surprised to find the lad perched precariously on a chair in the middle of the recreation room, trying to fix a large silver star to the ceiling. For some reason best known to himself, Connor had chosen a chair with castors.

Unsurprisingly, the chair started to slide and Connor yelped loudly. Stephen managed to arrest its progress across the floor before disaster struck, inwardly marvelling that their resident genius had survived infancy.

“That wasn’t healthy or safe!” Stephen grinned. “Were you listening to Lester?”

“No, I wasn’t, and neither were you,” Connor retorted. “Come on, he’s gone off to London this afternoon, so we’ve got the place to ourselves for an hour or so. Let’s make it look at bit more cheerful.”

Stephen rolled his eyes, but allowed himself to be pressed into service festooning the room with various brightly coloured streamers, taking advantage of his height to avoid the use of unsuitable items of furniture as step-ladders.

When they’d finished, Connor stepped back and surveyed the room admiringly. The sound of footsteps approaching down the corridor made Stephen cast a guilty glance at the door, hoping it didn’t herald Lester’s unscheduled return.

An old man with a shock of unruly white hair, dressed in a blue boiler-suit, poked his head around the door and declared, “It’s downstairs, laddie.”

Connor’s grin widened. “Great, thanks, Norman, you’re a star!”

“Be worth it to see the look on the face of ‘im upstairs,” the man said, an impish look dancing in his piercing dark eyes. “Mind, if ‘e asks, I’ll tell ‘im I ‘ad nowt to do wi’ it all.”

“Mum’s the word. Thanks, mate!”

“Who on earth was that?” Stephen queried, wondering quite how many people worked in the ARC and whether Connor was on first name terms with all of them already.

“Norman. He’s our maintenance supervisor, which probably translates as office handyman. Used to work for the MoD, apparently. I had a cup of coffee with him in the boiler room yesterday afternoon.”

“So what’s he got that Lester isn’t going to like?”

“Come and see. You can help me decorate it!”

A glance down into the atrium told Stephen exactly what Connor had been up to. A massive Christmas tree, at least 15 feet tall, was standing to one side of the array of computer screens, its base planted firmly in an enormous pot.

Connor scampered happily down the ramp, clutching his box of decorations. Stephen followed him, having some trouble keeping the grin off his own face. Connor’s enthusiasm was infectious.

An hour later, the tree had been festooned with shiny baubles, tinsel and another large star. Cutter had stuck his head out of his office and equally promptly retreated, muttering that they’d all gone mad.

“That looks nice,” said Claudia, smiling, and watching with amusement as Cutter scuttled back into the safety of his own domain. “Whether James will think it’s a good use of the petty cash is another matter, but we’ll draw a discreet veil over how much it cost, shall we?”

“I won’t tell, if you won’t,” Connor said. “And it could have been worse, we could have put a fairy on top of the tree.”

“I rather suspect Lieutenant Lyle might have used it for target practice.”

Stephen left the two of them to put the finishing touches to the tree and wandered back to the recreation room.

“Kettle’s on,” remarked Ryan, from the small kitchen. The soldier had a broad grin on his face. “Lester’s going to go berserk when he sees what Connor’s been up to. Lyle’s carrying a camera around to record the fireworks for posterity.”

“Lester needs to loosen up.”

Ryan grinned. “That’s a mental image I could do without, thank you very much.”

Stephen slipped his arms around his lover’s waist and drew Ryan in for a lazy kiss. Tongues duelled and when they finally broke for air, he was sporting a hard-on and so was Ryan.

“Coffee or a quick shag?” breathed the soldier, nipping at Stephen’s earlobe.

“The others will be up in a minute,” protested Stephen, making a half-hearted attempt to pull away.

Voices in the corridor proved his point and Ryan reluctantly released him, but not before he’d muttered in Stephen’s ear, “Meet me in the rest-rooms in 15 minutes.”

The rest-rooms were another of the ARC’s facilities that had received everyone’s seal of approval. At least now they could sleep in relative comfort whilst on call. Stephen drank his coffee quickly, doing his best not to look in Ryan’s direction, all the while hoping that no one would notice his rather persistent erection. At least Ryan’s black combats made a better job of hiding the state of his anatomy, although Stephen did notice the soldier surreptitiously loosening the thigh-straps on his holster and adjusting his trousers slightly.

Ryan made an excuse and left after ten minutes. Stephen stayed a while longer in conversation with Cutter and Claudia about their latest round of interviews, before finally managing to slide out gracefully.

Stephen’s heart quickened as he hurried down the corridor. Since Lester had left for his lunchtime meeting in Whitehall, the inhabitants of the ARC seemed to have been gripped by a collective air of ‘while the cat’s away’, and this particular mouse was no exception.

The rest-rooms each contained two sets of bunk beds and a small en-suite, with shower, toilet and washbasin. The walls were painted a clinical white but the beds were made up with brightly coloured duvets and there was an equally cheerful rug on the floor.

Stephen clicked the lock shut and leaned back against the door, grinning, feeling like a schoolboy who’d slipped away for a surreptitious wank behind the bike sheds. Ryan was leaning against one of the bunks, mischief gleaming in his grey eyes. He slid the zip on his black combat trousers down and freed his cock. Stephen closed the ground between them in an instant, his lips seeking Ryan’s as he wrapped his hand around the soldier’s erection and started to stroke.

Ryan bucked into his grip with a groan, as he fumbled with the button on Stephen’s jeans. They traded hot, messy kisses, laughter bubbling up between them as they behaved like a couple of randy teenagers on a first date. Stephen pushed his jeans and underwear down over his hips and turned around to grip the post at the end of the bunks.

There was no time for foreplay. He drew in a sharp breath as Ryan’s cock pushed into him, stretching him wide, slicked with just enough gun oil to ease its passage, and started to thrust.

Ryan’s hands held his hips in place and the soldier murmured in Stephen’s ear, “If you get come on that duvet, Hart, Claudia will have the pair of us up on a charge.”

Stephen gave a breathless laugh and fished in his pocket for a handkerchief. “You’re a romantic bastard, Ryan.”

“Takes one to know one, sweetie,” Ryan said, pounding hard into Stephen’s body. “If you’re a good boy and hold it in long enough you can come in my mouth. How’s that for romance?”

Holding it in was easier said than done. Ryan was nailing his prostate hard, making sharp shocks of pleasure explode deep inside him, and the slightly rough sensation of the cotton handkerchief touching his over-sensitive flesh wasn’t exactly helping, either. Stephen wrapped his fingers and thumb round the base of his cock, doing his best to hold his orgasm at bay long enough to allow Ryan to reach his own climax.

He felt the soldier’s equipment vest digging into his back and the scrape of Ryan’s thigh holsters on the backs of his legs. Stephen’s arms were wrapped around the end of the bunk to keep himself upright and his face was pressed up against a duvet which smelled fresh and clean. Ryan’s thrusts were starting to lose their rhythm now and his breath was coming in sharp pants. Stephen’s thighs were trembling with the effort of keeping himself upright and the need to come was getting urgent, made worse by the way Ryan was biting at the back of his neck.

A muffled groan announced that Ryan had hit his climax. Stephen was held hard against Ryan as his lover ground his hips against Stephen’s bare flesh. The soldier was breathing deeply as he withdrew unceremoniously and sank to his knees on the tiled floor, pulling aside Stephen’s hands, and the now-damp handkerchief, to close his mouth around Stephen’s cock.

With a grateful sigh, Stephen ran his hands through Ryan’s short blond hair and started to thrust into his lover’s mouth. He felt Ryan’s hands slip around him, caressing his buttocks and thighs. Stephen was close to the edge already, enjoying the slight scrape of Ryan’s teeth on his flesh as he lost himself in wet heat. The sensation of a finger trailing through the come already starting to leak out of his loosened hole and teasing at the sensitive skin behind his balls was enough to tip him over the edge. Stephen’s cock spurted into Ryan’s welcoming mouth as he muffled his cry of pleasure in the duvet hanging from the top bunk.

Stephen was breathing hard, tremors coursing through his body. Ryan came to his feet and enfolded him in strong arms for a deep kiss, sharing his own taste with him. Stephen clutched at Ryan’s equipment vest to hold himself upright, losing himself in the intensity of the kiss.

His heart was still racing five minutes later as he followed Ryan back down the corridor to the atrium, come still leaking from his pleasantly sore body. He was thankful that he’d decided to put on underwear for a change, a fact that Ryan had already remarked on with evident amusement.

They were greeted by the sight of Lyle, hanging suspended in a caving harness from a rope rigged from the walkway which led down in a graceful spiral from the first floor. A moment later, Finn heaved an enormous blow-up Santa Claus, busy climbing a short rope ladder, over the rail and he and Lyle started to fix it in place. Once he was satisfied that the figure was hanging properly, the lieutenant abseiled down to the floor of the atrium, and called for Finn to pull his rope up. He stood back to admire his handiwork.

“Dear God,” breathed Ryan, almost reverently. “Lester’ll go apeshit.”

Lyle grinned. “He wouldn’t let me hang it outside the window of his flat.”

“Incoming!” called Blade’s voice from above them. “Security have just called Lorraine. He’s driven in through the main gates.”

Connor pressed a button on one of his control panels and the sound of Jingle Bells started to echo out of the public address system.

A few minutes later, the garage doors started to draw back and James Lester stalked into the atrium. He came to an abrupt halt, staring around him in mounting horror.

“What part of ‘no Christmas decorations’ did you all fail to understand this morning?” Lester demanded, distributing a glare that would have stopped a herd of stampeding woolly rhinoceros in the tracks but which, as far as Stephen could tell, failed to even scratch the surface of Lyle’s amusement.

“So that’s what he was on about this morning,” said Connor, in a hushed voice that still managed to make itself heard even over the strains of muzak.

The sharp tip-tap of heels on the concrete floor behind Lester drew everyone’s attention.

Sir James Lester turned around to greet an elegantly-dressed woman in her mid-50s, whose eyes were already starting to widen in amazement.

“Welcome to the Anomaly Research Centre, Home Secretary.”

The corners of the woman’s lips twitched suspiciously. “How delightful, James. I’m pleased to see you’re mellowing with age.”

“Offer the Home Secretary something to eat, Stephen,” said Claudia, thrusting a tray of warm confectionary into his hands.

Feeling too much like a sacrificial lamb for comfort, Stephen moved smoothly forward, conscious of his hair standing up in spikes and the come leaking out of his arse. “Can I tempt you to a mince pie, ma’am?”

“That would be lovely, Dr Hart,” smiled the Home Secretary, her eyes lingering on the small triangle of dark hair peeking out from the neck of Stephen’s shirt. “Now, James, perhaps you’d like to show me what else the taxpayer’s money has been spent on?”


End file.
